1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic processing of scanned financial documents. More particularly, the invention concerns a computer-implemented system to track, process, and report exceptions arising from processing of electronic representations of checks and other financial documents.
2. Description of the Related Art
In 2004, the U.S. Congress enacted the “Check Clearing for the Twenty-First Century Act.” People call it “Check21,” for short. With the goal of reducing waste and delay in check processing, Check21 enabled banks to handle checks electronically. Instead of transporting paper checks from one institution to another, Check21 allows banks to process checks electronically. Banks capture an image of the front and back of the check along with the associated payment information and transmit this electronically. “Truncation” refers to the removal of an original paper check from the check processing stream, and use of substitute electronic check instead. Thereafter, the use of the image in place of the paper check is referred to as “image exchange.” If someone along the line requires a paper check, the bank can use the electronic image to create a paper proxy called an image replacement document (IRD). Outside the realm of Check21, it has been a logical extension for banks to scan and digitally process documents beyond checks, such as deposit slips, withdrawal slips, and other such documents.
After Check21 came into effect, the first banks to implement image exchange did so by adopting a centralized scanning model. With centralized scanning, a bank routes paper checks from the bank's various branches or other deposit accepting locations (cash vaults, lockbox operations, etc.) to a central facility, and captures/scans them there. This minimizes the overhead required to start using image exchange, since it processes the checks using a central staff and central computer hardware. Of course, various computers outside this central facility must still be reprogrammed to communicate according to the new requirements of image exchange. For instance, computers must be programmed to retrieve images of checks to satisfy customer inquiries, prepare statements, conduct research, and the like. Further, central computers of the bank must be programmed to electronically transmit the check images to other banks, which is really the main idea in performing image exchange in the first place.
The next extension of image exchange has been “distributed capture.” With distributed capture, these same documents are digitized earlier relative to the point of presentment. For instance, local bank branches may perform on-site digitization, instead of forwarding the paper checks to a central processing facility.
Regardless of whether a bank uses scanned financial documents, paper, or both, most banks employ a central outfit to perform functions such as check clearing, settlement, balancing, and other traditional banking functions. As for the specific task of processing scanned financial documents in this context, various software platforms have arisen. Many of these enjoy commercial success, and provide a significant benefit to users.
One persistent problem, however, concerns the processing of so-called “exceptions.” Broadly, an exception is financial document or transaction that is not amenable to being processed by image capture or IRD. In a system that is focused on smoothly processing electronic representations of checks and other documents, exceptions provide a significant problem. Typically, in order to process an exception, a bank must find the original paper documents in storage somewhere, retrieve the documents, and process them manually. This is time consuming, for people to locate and retrieve the document, and also for people to hand process the document. Moreover, the situation presents a significant opportunity for error.
Exceptions, then, provide a significant impediment to a bank's otherwise smooth and automated processing of scanned images.